1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in a redeemable voucher and game ticket combination and an electronic apparatus operating as a technological aid used with the game ticket portion to play the sweepstakes promotional game and which thereby serves as an inducement to acquire the voucher and, more particularly, to a voucher and game ticket combination where game ticket of the voucher allows the play of a game simultaneously with the dispensing of the voucher and where the voucher may represent an item of utilitarian value or evidence of an expenditure, including a redeemable expenditure, such as prepaid telephone card.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
In recent years, the dispensing of various types of vouchers in order to obtain a specific good or service has become quite popular. These vouchers are dispensed from a dispensing apparatus when the user inserts a selected amount of money into the apparatus, and thereby acquires a prepaid voucher. These vouchers are effective for use by the recipient at a later time since they are prepaid, and may be redeemed to obtain a specific good or service at time of need without the necessity to pay any money at that the time of actual use. Moreover, these vouchers are also effective as gift items.
One of the effective types of voucher is a redeemable voucher, that is, one in which the voucher represents a prepaid expenditure which can redeemed for a further good or service. A simple example is a telephone card or so-called "phone card" often referred to as a "prepaid phone card". These phone cards are effective in enabling a user to pay a specified amount of money in order to acquire a ticket or voucher representing that pre-payment for subsequent use to acquire telephone access, e.g. long distance access, on that telephone without payment at the time of use. The user of the telephone card can dial a toll-free access telephone number and/or other numeric code as, for example, a personal identification (PIN) number on the card in order to obtain access through conventional telephones for a selected time period, e.g. a two minute telephone call. In another form, the voucher may be a ticket or card of utilitarian value as, for example, a collectable, e.g. collectible baseball cards.
Other types of prepaid card dispensers may permit accessing of goods as, for example, a prepaid gasoline card, to obtain a selected amount of gasoline with that card. Thus, if a user of a gasoline card is using an automobile in which gasoline is needed, and that user does not have available money on his or her person at the time, the gasoline card would be highly effective. In like manner, a telephone card is highly effective where a user may need to access a pay telephone when money is not available or otherwise, may wish to use another party's telephone without incurring telephone costs for that other party. Inasmuch as there is little governmental regulation on this type of voucher dispenser, and due to a high profit potential there is a substantial amount of competition among voucher dispensers.
In order to enhance the use of a particular operator's voucher dispenser, it has been proposed in accordance with the present invention to incorporate a promotional game, such as a sweepstakes promotional game, in connection with the dispensing of a voucher, such as a prepaid phone card. Sweepstakes are commonly used as a marketing approach to enhance the sales of a product or service. As a simple example, soft drink manufacturers may offer a sweepstakes in connection with the sale of a bottle of a soft drink. The purchaser of the soft drink will examine the underside of the soft drink bottle or the bottle cap for a sweepstakes number, and submit that number to the operator in order to determine if that purchaser won the sweepstakes. However, in order to assure that it is a true sweepstakes and not an illegal lottery activity, the entire available public is entitled to acquire a bottle cap or the like, also presenting a possibility of winning the sweepstakes without purchasing the soft drink itself. This is accomplished by merely contacting the company or the producer of that soft drink or otherwise the retailer offering that product, and requesting a bottle cap or game ticket or other game piece without requirement of a paid purchase.
There have also been various electronic games of chance which are considered to be pure random chance games, e.g. those using random number generation such as slot machines. There are other types of games of chance which are not considered to be random chance games, such as those used in the aid of the game of pull tab and, consequently, they are available for use with the general public. There are also certain electronic types of games which enable the dispensing of a ticket and also generate a display of icons or other information which appear on the dispensed ticket. Representation of such games is U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,726 to Churchill et al for an Automatic Gaming System. There are other apparatus which will verify indicia on a game ticket as, for example, that system described and illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,729 to Solitt, et al, for a Bingo Verification System.
In the present invention, each voucher will bear voucher indicia such as information on how to redeem the voucher for a selected good or service, or otherwise indicia which may have utilitarian value, such as information about an entertainment personality. The game ticket portion will contain a game indicia which allows for the play of the promotional game, as well as a machine readable code such as a bar code which is imprinted on the voucher. The code is read by the voucher dispensing game apparatus and information is generated on a display screen corresponding to that game indicia which is presented on the game ticket portion of the voucher.